Comfort and Joy
by Pearl Took
Summary: Pippin has trouble sleeping while on a visit to Bag End which does not bode well for Merry and Frodo.


Thank you to Golden for another from her seemingly endless supply of plot bunnies.

Pippin and Merry staying at Bag End with Frodo. Pippin can't sleep; his feet are too cold then too hot, then he is hungry after which he is too full with too much energy. Write about his and his cousin's frustrations over losing a night's sleep.

Comfort and Joy

"I almost feel like waking him," Merry said irritably. "It would serve him right."

"No!" Frodo exclaimed sotto voce. "No you don't, Meriadoc. He's finally asleep and with any luck we soon will be too. Leave him as he is; don't touch a thing. Just back away quietly and let's go to our own rooms."

They stood a few moments more looking at the slumbering tweenager. He lay sprawled on his back on the sofa in the parlor. His mouth was open, Pippin's mouth seemed always to be open except when he was chewing food, and the sound of his soft breathing could easily be heard. The top of him was uncovered by anything other than his nightshirt. A knitted blanket lay over his hips and down his left leg to completely cover his foot while his right leg was covered only by his night shirt, and that only down to his knee. His right leg dangled over the edge of the sofa from the knee down with his bare toes barely touching the ornate rug.

Merry moved his hand toward the blanket. "Perhaps I should cover his right le . . ."

"NO!" Frodo hissed, grabbing his cousin's arm and jerking it away from the sleeper on the sofa. "No. He apparently is just right, at last. Leave him be."

With one more glance at their young cousin, the two older cousins turned and walked out of the parlor, bid each other quiet good nights (even though it was nearly dawn) and shuffled off to their rooms.

It had all started shortly after they had called it a night and gone to their beds the evening before.

"May I share with you, Merry?"

"Hmm?"

"Share the bed with you. May I share with you, Merry? I can't seem to get warm in my bed."

The two tweens, Pippin at twenty-two and Merry a ripe old thirty, were spending the first two weeks of Afteryule with their elder cousin Frodo at Bag End. It gave them all a little more time for a visit than the week they had together for Yule at Great Smials, and that without all the fuss and bother of everyday life at the huge smial.

When the younger lads had been even younger they regularly shared a bed, but now that they were tweens they preferred the room to sprawl out that separate beds in the same room afforded them.

Pippin nudged Merry, who had drifted off. "May I, Merry?"

"Yea," Merry mumbled as he scooted over to make room for the lad.

"ACH!" he screamed seconds after Pippin entered the bed. "Feet! Get your freezing feet off of me!"

"Sorry!" came the quick reply as, even more quickly, the offending feet were snatched away. "Told you I couldn't get warm."

"You and being cold," Merry sighed.

"I can't help it." Pippin's pout showed in his voice.

"I know. You're too thin and too . . . too . . . you're too thin. Now go to sleep and don't touch me."

"Yes Merry. G'night Merry."

"G'night Pip."

But sleep eluded the youngster. His feet almost hurt, they were so cold. He tried thinking them warmer.

"Yes," he thought. "I'm lying on the heath rug, my feet nearly on the hearth itself. There's a nice roasty-toasty blaze in the grate and if I'm not careful I'll singe my soles."

Pippin imagined and imagined the pleasant scene.

His feet got even colder.

Next he tried moving his feet back and forth beneath the blankets. He moved slowly at first, not wanting to disturb his slumbering cousin, but as that didn't work, he moved them a little faster. A little faster. A little . . .

"Pip!"

The lad jerked in surprise.

"What in Middle-earth are you doing? Running a race in your dreams?"

"Eh, no, Merry. I'm not dreaming at all. I'm moving my feet to get them warm."

"Well move them slower, you're keeping me awake."

"It doesn't work going slower. I tried it already."

Merry sighed loudly. "Then do something else," he said tersely.

"Yes, Merry. G'night Merry."

"G'night Pippin."

Pippin lay there a few moments then slipped out of the bed and padded over to the fireplace. He held out his hands. Yes, the coals were still giving off heat. As quietly as he could he stirred them up to shake the crust of ash off of them, then laid on two small logs.

Well, he tried to lay on two small logs. He dropped one into the grate.

"What was that!"

"I dropped a log into the grate, Merry. All is well, it didn't make a mess. Go back to sleep."

"If I can," muttered the lump in the bed which in a few moments was snoring.

Soon the logs caught and a small cozy fire glowed in the fireplace. Pippin grabbed a blanket off of his own bed to wrap around himself, then sat with his legs straight out before him with his feet as close to the fire as he dared to put them.

When he woke up he felt as though something wasn't quite right. The next instant he jerked his feet away from the hearth with an expletive.

"Bloody hell!"

"Pippin!" Merry mumbled sternly. "Watch your language."

"Bloody hell! I think my feet are smoking, Merry!"

"What?" Merry sat bolt upright in the bed. The air in the room did smell a bit oddly.

"My feet! My, ow! Feet! I think I've singed them."

Merry was at Pippin's side in an instant. The skin on a hobbit's feet was tough as tough could be, but it did have its limits. Pippin's soles were hot to the touch and Merry was sure that in the light of day they would be quite pink looking.

"I don't think you've burned them yet. Hopefully, they won't even blister. Sit here, Pippin."

"As though I feel like walking anywhere. Ohhh!" Pippin added painfully as Merry hurried from the room. "Do hurry Merry!"

"What is going on in here?" came Frodo's sleepy voice from the doorway. He had stuck his head out of his bedroom door just in time to see Merry rushing down the tunnel to the bathing room.

Pippin turned around. "I've toasted my feet," he said in a childlike voice. "Merry's gone to get something for them."

"You toasted your feet?"

"They were cold."

"They are always cold. What made you put them in the fire, Pippin?"

"Not in the fire, Frodo. I'm not that daft. I . . . oh, thank you Merry!" Pippin exclaimed with a large sigh of pleasure.

The middle cousin had returned with wrung out cloths in a bucket. He had just wrapped one around Pippin's left foot.

"Not in the fire, Frodo, but too close upon the hearth for too long. I think I had finally fallen asleep."

"Hmm." was all the elder cousin said. Frodo left the room and returned with a large lamp. By it's bright light, they could see that Pippin's feet were not as injured as they had initially thought. After a short time of sitting with the cold wrappings upon his feet, they had Pippin try standing up. To everyone's great relief, his feet hurt, but not unbearably so.

But now they were cold again.

At Frodo's suggestion, the lads got back into bed and Frodo wrapped Pippin's feet with a small lap robe before he covered them with the bedclothes.

"Good night now, lads," Frodo said from the door as he left for his own room.

"Good night Frodo!" Merry and Pippin said in unison.

For a while all was quite in Bag End.

Until Pippin's stomach growled.

Then growled again.

Pippin wriggled about, seeking a more comfortable position. "Shush!" he whispered to his noisy tummy. "You'll wake Merry!"

But the lad could not get comfortable and his stomach had a mind of it's own.

It rumbled and gurgled, the sound seeming louder than it really was in the quiet of the dwelling.

"Roll over Pip!" Merry muttered and shoved at his cousin's shoulder. "You're snoring."

There was no sense in explaining to Merry, he wasn't really awake, so Pippin again addressed his stomach.

"Told you you'd bother him, wretched stomach! Now hush."

It was no good. Pippin lay there another twenty minutes, as near as he could reckon, and his tummy just kept up singing its hunger songs. With a sigh, he got up, put on his dressing gown, lit a candle with a taper he lit from the coals in the hearth, then carefully tiptoed out of the room on his still tender feet.

The tiles of the kitchen floor felt better on his feet than had the rugs and wood floors of the rest of the hole. Pippin lit the large lamp in the center of the table, then he and his candle went to investigate the cupboards and the pantry. As quietly as he could, he fired up the range and soon he was happily mixing up the ingredients for griddle cakes. He whistled a tuneless tune as he cracked the eggs into the flour. He started to dance a little jig as her mixed the batter, but it soon hurt his tender feet, so he had to content himself with bouncing at the knees in time to his whistling.

"Those were some of the best . . . he paused to belch . . . griddle cakes I've ever made, and Peregrin Took makes excellent griddle cakes, I will have you know," he said to the empty kitchen as he patted his full tummy.

"These will wait for morning," Pippin sighed as he looked at the dirty griddle, mixing bowl, plate and fork he had used. He burped loudly again then blew out the lamp, took up his candle then headed back to the room he shared with Merry. Back into Merry's bed he crawled, stifling another burp so as not to disturb his cousin.

He laid on his back.

He laid on his right side.

His left side.

Back.

Stomach. (NOT a good idea as it was very full)

He went through every position again.

"Pippin!" Merry didn't bother being quiet. "What is your problem?"

"I can't seem to lie still, Merry," Pippin explained, following it with a belch.

Merry could smell syrup and griddle cakes.

He sighed. "How many did you eat?"

"I think a dozen," Pippin mumbled embarrassedly. "I sort of lost count."

Merry sighed again. "How much syrup?"

"Eh . . . half the bottle?" Pippin sounded like he was asking a question instead of giving an answer.

"Wonderful!" Merry groaned. "Get up!" He pushed his cousin toward the edge of the bed. "Get up and get out. You will not be able to sleep for at least an hour. Maybe two with all of that in you. Go!"

"Yes Merry," came the dejected reply as Pippin got up, put on his dressing gown and left the room.

Peace reigned for about half an hour when a huge crash rattled the walls of Bag End. Frodo and Merry arrived at the kitchen together. The large hanging rack that normally held most of Frodo's pots and pans was swinging back and forth.

It was empty.

All the pots and pans were on the floor with Pippin. Along with pieces of plates which had been on the table and that some of the pans had hit and broken to bits as they landed.

"I lost my balance," Pippin squeaked like a mouse as his cousins now noticed that a tipped over step ladder was lying not far from their cousin. "I had decided to wash up after Merry kicked me out of the bed. I was trying to hang the griddle when . . ." he looked at the mess surrounding him on the cold tile floor. ". . . I lost my balance," he meekly finished.

Frodo sighed and closed his eyes. Merry turned away so, hopefully, neither Frodo or Pippin would see he was laughing.

"Get up Pippin," Frodo said softly.

"I'll clean it all . . ."

"No," Frodo cut the lad off in mid offer. "No, Pip, that is quite all right. Merry and I will clean it up. You may go into the parlor and sit on the sofa and do nothing until we are done. I don't know that I could handle anything else happening tonight."

A pair of weary blue eyes opened and gazed down at the tweenager on the floor.

"Do you think you can manage to sit on the sofa and not hurt yourself nor break anything?"

"Yes, Frodo," came the contrite answer.

"Then go."

Pippin went and it was there, on the sofa in the parlor, that his cousins later found him.

Frodo wondered, as he finally drifted off to sleep, if he should say something to Pip when they all finally woke up later in the day about his inability to do as he was told. After all, he'd been told to sit on the sofa, not lie down and fall asleep.

Merry happily laid down in his bed.

But when Frodo awoke and went into the parlor a few hours later it was clear the fire had been built up again at some point in time before once more dying down. Merry was wrapped in several blankets and asleep on the floor by the sofa on which Pippin still soundly slept. Frodo smiled and laughed softly to himself as he stoked the fire. He got another knitted blanket from the stand beside the fireplace and wrapped it about himself before sitting in the wing backed chair, putting his feet up on the foot stool and joining his cousins in blissful slumber.


End file.
